


Kisses are a far better fate than wisdom

by Rosie_Rues



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Domestic, Drabble Collection, F/M, Kisses, M/M, Reunions, flashfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 14:06:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10698573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosie_Rues/pseuds/Rosie_Rues
Summary: Kisses. Lots of kisses. Mostly Victuuri, but there's one Yuri/Otabek in here and one young!Yakov/young!Lilia. All eight are standalone, all feature at least one significant kiss, and all were written to bribe myself through a weekend with a hellish to-do list XD





	1. Victor/Yuuri, Hatsetsu, after Ep 12

Victor’s lips are always chapped.

The lip balm he slathers on them makes them soft—makes them shine so Yuuri sometimes finds himself just staring and staring, but it’s never quite enough, not after days on and by the ice. Victor’s lips have rough edges, a thousand tiny hidden lines and scars etched in them from a lifetime in the cold.

Yuuri loves the way they feel against his—loves the way their lips catch and stutter against each other, the rough edges that make it real. He likes the way Victor’s breath is quick and unsteady right now, the way Victor breathes in hard and slow when Yuuri slides his tongue against the cracked corners of his mouth, not sure if he’s trying to soothe Victor or seduce him.

They’re both pressed hard against the side of the rink where it divides them. Yuuri’s knees are aching and sweat is trickling down his spine. He’s taken Victor by surprise, and one of Victor’s hands is twisted awkwardly against the neck of Yuuri’s top, his grip twisting tighter with every scrape of their rough mouths against each other. His other hand cups Yuuri’s cheek, his ring a solid band against Yuuri’s cheekbone.

There’s a footstep behind them and Yuuko calls lightly, “Boys? Are you still—oh, sorry!”

Yuuri’s cheeks grow hot, but he doesn’t stop kissing Victor.

“We’ll leave you to it, then,” Yuuko says, laughing. Then there’s a sound of excited voices and her voice rises in frustration. “No  photos , girls!”

Yuuri’s pretty sure they’re going to end up on Instagram again. He smiles wryly against Victor’s kiss as their footsteps fade into the distance, and goes back to simply feeling. He’ll worry about it later, when his entire world isn’t focussed on the place where their mouths meet.

Victor’s smiling too, and it changes the kiss, makes it clumsy for a second before they both lean in again. Victor’s mouth opens under his, hot and wet where the air around them is cold and dry. Yuuri falls into it, heart racing, breath quickening, the smile no longer on his face but shining through his whole body, because this is Victor, this is him, this is both of them together, not perfect but happy, happier than he ever dreamed he could be.

  



	2. Victor/Yuuri, St Petersburg, post-series

It took Yuuri a week to lay claim to one of Victor’s sofas. At first, he was hesitant, still not quite sure where he fitted into Victor’s life in Russia, into Victor’s vast, glamourous apartment, into the already-established rhythms of Victor’s life here. They orbited each other nervously for the first few days, both trying too hard not to ask too much of each other, both desperate to make this a home rather than a place to sleep.

Then their training routine started in earnest. Exhaustion overcomes all social niceties. This is now Yuuri’s sofa. It’s the perfect length for his legs, squashy enough to be comfortable, but firm enough to support him. His neck fits against the arm, his favourite fleece blanket, which has followed him home from Detroit and now away again, lives thrown over the back, and he’s shifted a coffee table so it’s at the perfect angle to reach out and pick up his tea without looking.

Victor’s accused him of loving the sofa more than him. For a moment, that made Yuuri freeze, start composing reassurances in his head. Then he remembers that Victor isn’t going anywhere—that it’s safe to joke with him—and says, without looking up, “The sofa snores less than you do.”

“Yuuri!” Victor cries, clasping his hand to his heart, but he’s laughing, so Yuuri holds out his hand. Victor takes it and let Yuuri pull him close enough to kiss him, both of them smiling.

The sofa sees a lot of kisses. 

They fall into a routine, at the end of every day. They stumble most of the way home from the rink together, part ways so Yuuri can pick up Makkachin from the dogsitter and Victor can buy groceries. They tried doing both chores together at first, but exhaustion wins out, and Yuuri can’t read any of the food labels and always gets twitchy when he tries to figure out just how much they’re being charged at the upmarket little delis Victor favours, so it works out better this way.

He usually gets home first, Makkachin bouncing happily at his heels. He puts the kettle on for tea, and then collapses happily on his sofa. Makkachin often scrambles up with him, and Yuuri tries to stay awake long enough to get up and finish the tea if Victor isn’t home by then.

He usually is, exploding into the flat with exclamations of delight at the sight of both of them, stories of the things he’s seen since they parted, or exuberant promises about the culinary adventures he has planned for tonight. He hangs his coat up, tidies aside the bag Yuuri has dropped just inside the door, dips down to kiss Yuuri and scratch Makkachin behind the ears, before he carries the food to the kitchen, sets the tea to brew and comes back again.

Yuuri likes to watch him, and he can never help smiling and smiling. He’ll never stop wanting to look at this man—never stop marvelling that all this is his now.

Victor likes to kneel beside the sofa, tangle his hand in Yuuri’s hair, and kiss him softly. No matter how tired he is, it always makes Yuuri’s heart beat a little faster. He always rises into it, always feels the wonder of Victor’s warm mouth on his tingle through him, always feels like he’s going to overflow with all the love Victor brings into a room with him.

Sometimes they break apart after a few moments, and Yuuri relaxes and watches as Victor wanders back to the kitchen. Yuuri himself is a perfectly capable cook—his mother made sure of that—but years of diet plans and cafeteria food have left him inclined to eat whatever appears in front of him. He rarely puts the effort in to make something special, not unless he deserves it. Victor, on the other hand, will take a list of regimented ingredients and transform it—chaotically, creatively—into something which is always interesting, usually delicious, and only occasionally inedible. 

Other times, they keep kissing until Makkachin lets out a long-suffering sigh and flops down to the floor, leaving them to each other. Those evenings, their kisses turn hotter and hungrier, mouths clinging, hands roaming, hearts racing.

The best thing about Yuuri’s sofa is that it’s big enough for two.


	3. Stupid questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Otabek/Yuri, several years later

Yuri’s still  furious when they get back to their suite in the hotel. He slams through the door, throws his keys one way and his tie another, still hissing out everything Lilia’s finally taught him to hold back until the media are out of earshot. 

“Of all the fucking stupid questions!” he snarls, kicking his shoes off so hard they bounce off the walls. “’Have you considered following in Victor Nikiforov’s footsteps by marrying one of your biggest fans?’ What the fuck is that? Stupid, vacuous bitch!”

Otabek shrugs, but doesn’t disagree.

Yuri isn’t done. The stupid suit jacket goes after his tie—stupid press conferences and their stupid dress codes! “Firstly, I am not following Victor  anywhere . I have beaten all his world records! Repeatedly!”

“I was there,” Otabek notes. “He cried. Every time.”

“Pfft.” Yuri drops backwards over the arm of the piddly little sofa and glares at the ceiling. “Secondly, Victor did not just marry one of his fans. Katsudon was, well, yeah.”

“One of the top skaters in the world at the time?” Otabek suggests. He comes over to the soft, and sits down, nudging Yuri’s until he sits up enough to drop his head onto Otabek’s thigh (not a hardship—many of the happiest memories of his life involve Otabek’s thighs in some way. People should write fucking sonnets to Otabek’s thighs). 

He’s feeling better, but he still grimaces. “Yeah, that.”

“Still don’t like admitting it?”

He half-shrugs, lifting his head so Otabek can pull out his hair where it’s trapped between them. “He should have been  better .” 

One of the nicest things about Otabek is the way he always refrains from pointing out when Yuri’s said something blatantly stupid. He looks very good in a suit too, as if the power he expresses every time he sets foot on ice has been contained and focussed in every sleek line of cloth. Yuri stretches out his legs, arches his back, and settles in more comfortably. Otabek runs his fingers through Yuri’s hair, smoothing out the tangles. He can feel every gentle tug, and it eases a little more of his anger. 

He’s still annoyed, though. What right do these stupid people have to ask such questions. “Thirdly—”

“How long is this list?”

Yuri ignores that. “Thirdly, it’s just not  _fair._ ”

It’s not fair on any of them, he means. Not on his fans, who can’t help being young and stupid and romantic and who might actually be hurt by that hope, not on him, always having to live up to other people’s ideas of who and what he is, not on Otabek, who is too private to be dragged into the limelight where Yuri lives and so has to sit and listen to these stupid, shitty questions time after time after time.

Otabek, who is looking down at him, with laughter in his eyes.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Yuri grumbles.

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re doing that thing with your face.”

Otabek does it a little more, his mouth curling up on one side, one eyebrow lifting, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

“I hate you,” Yuri complains and pulls himself up by Otabek’s lapels to kiss him. 

Otabek kisses him as if he’s the most precious thing in the world, always has, and it always makes Yuri’s heart race. It makes him want to curl up against Otabek and never let go, and at the same time urges him to reach out and grab, to wrestle them both out of their clothes and down onto the nearest flat surface. He still doesn’t know what to do with those conflicting needs, so he pours them both into his kiss and trusts Otabek will know what to do with them.

When the kiss breaks apart, Otabek really is smiling at him. “Liar,” he says. “You don’t hate me.”

“Obviously,” Yuri says, resettles himself so he’s straddling Otabek’s lap, and goes in for another kiss.

By the time, they come back to the original conversation, he’s managed to get Otabek out of the suit, and everything else, and they’re collapsed against each other in bed, and Yuri’s kind of glad they’ve got a full day off before either of them has to skate an exhibition piece. He’s planning on spending it right here, his head pillowed against Otabek’s warm chest, Otabek’s hand curved around his hip, the sound of Otabek’s heart beating against his ear.

“Would you really never marry your biggest fan?”

Seriously? They’re back to this? “No, because I’m not stupid like some people!”

“Shame,” Otabek says, his hand running down Yuri’s back.

“What kind of fucked up, unequal relationship would that be anyway?” Yuri complains, sitting up and throwing his hands in the air. “Only fucking Victor could get away with that in real life, and that’s only because—”

He stops short, and stares down at Otabek. Wait. What? Otabek smiles up at him, his eyes impossibly fond—Otabek, who has admired Yuri since before anyone else knew his name, Otabek who applauds his every victory, Otabek, who looks at him like—

“Are you fucking serious?” Yuri demands, which is not the most graceful response to what he’s not even sure Otabek has asked.

“I wouldn’t want to offend your deeply held principles,” Otabek says, the fucking shit stirrer that he is. “But if you should change your mind…”

Yuri lets out a noise of sheer, high-pitched outrage, throws himself back into Otabek’s arms, and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until he’s sure the answer is obvious.


	4. Coming Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because this fandom can never have too many airport reunions...

Sometimes Yuuri worries that he will one day look back on his twenties and only remember the airports. 

Well, and Victor, of course, but Victor is also the thing he will remember most from his teens and, he hopes, his thirties, forties, fifties and every decade to come.

But he has seen more airports in the last ten years than many people do in their lives and most of them he’s seen when either panic-stricken or exhausted. They all blur into one high-ceilinged, windowless maze, announcements echoing over his head in languages he doesn’t understand. Even those he knows best—Wayne County and Fukuoka—leave him dazed and disorientated.

He’s going to get to know this one—will have to. But today he confuses Pulkovo with Helsinki, turns the wrong way and finds himself dragging his bags down a long corridor which only ends in a toilet with a closed sign on the door. He retraces his path wearily, reminding himself that every step takes him closer to Victor.

He’s bringing Victor a gold medal from the Japanese Nationals, a copy of his mother’s  katsudon recipe, and himself. Victor’s waiting for him somewhere in this airport with a silver from Russian nationals, a new car Yuuri’s only learned about from Instagram—hopefully Victor wasn’t planning for it to be a surprise—and, Yuuri desperately hopes, open arms.

This isn’t the first time he’s come to St Petersburg. His toothbrush is in Victor’s bathroom, his skates have their own place on the rack in Victor’s hallway, and his spare glasses are—he hopes—somewhere under Victor’s bed. But this is the first time he’s come  home here, the first time he’s returned after a competition. In the blank, featureless light of airport hallways, it all feels a little strange, a little surreal, but he lives here now. He belongs here, even if he can’t quite find the way out right now.

He stumbles onto the end of another crowd—not the people who got off his flight, he’s pretty sure. They’re all far ahead of him.

But following this group gets him to his bags, and then out into the main concourse, dragging his cases behind him as he blinks up at the sudden glare of winter sunlight streaming in the slanted windows. He feels very small, very grubby, and more than a little lost.

It doesn’t help that the first thing he sees is an enormous billboard plastered with Victor’s face. Yuuri’s written Russian isn’t good enough to work out what it’s advertising, but he can’t look away. Would anyone in the bustling crowd believe that he belonged with someone that beautiful and compelling? 

He really needs to find Victor and remind himself that they do fit together.

And then he needs to sleep.

“Oi, Piggy!”

The voice comes from above and he looks up to see Yuri Plisetsky hanging over the edge of the balcony, scowling at him. Other people are staring too, whispering behind their hands, lifting their phones to take a photo.

Yuuri hopes they’re not looking at him, but lifts his hand and waves anyway.

“We’ve been waiting ages! Did you get lost or something?”

Yuuri shrugs and Yurio rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, Victor’s on his way downstairs. Brace yourself and don’t be too disgusting.”

Yuuri smiles at him, relief spilling through him, and Yurio makes a face and turns away, pointedly covering his eyes with his hand. 

Then Yuuri turns round and Victor’s there, racing towards him across the concourse with his coat flying behind him. Yuuri lets go of his bags and steps forward to meet him.

Victor picks him up, swings him round like they’re in a movie, his arms tight and his smile bright. Yuuri wraps his arms around him, buries his face against Victor’s shoulder, and  _breathes_ .

“I missed you so much,” Victor is saying in his ear. “I couldn’t bear it, Yuuri.”

_Yes_ , Yuuri thinks, because that’s it. He looks up, says, “But I’m here now,” and Victor kisses him.

It’s quick and fond, just a warm press of lips to lips, but something in Yuuri relaxes at it. When they part, he can only smile at Victor. Nothing else matters. He’s here and Victor’s arms are around him and everything’s okay.

“You’ve been apart  less than a week, ” Yurio mutters at them, grabbing the handle of Yuuri’s forgotten luggage. “Stop being disgusting or I’m going to leave you here to cry all over each other.”

Victor asks, sounding genuinely curious, “And how will you do that?”

“I will hotwire your stupid car.”

Yuuri relaxes a little more, because this is how it’s meant to be too. “I’m fairly sure you’re not old enough to drive.”

“So?” Yurio stomps off, pulling Yuuri’s luggage after him.

Victor laughs, releases him just enough wrap his arm around Yuuri’s shoulder, and pulls him in the same direction. Yuuri thinks about trying to take his bags back, but he’s fairly sure neither of them will let him. Instead, he lets them lead him out, Yurio’s complaining and Victor’s chatter merging into the warm, comforting sound of home.


	5. Victor/Yuuri, St Petersburg, post-series

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kisses on ice

Victor learned some time ago that the best teaching method he has lies in his kiss. He has kissed Yuuri for landing quads, for perfect step sequences, for his musicality, his grace, his sheer beauty on ice. He has also kissed Yuuri to distract him from self-doubt, to boost his confidence, and (although he will never admit this out loud) to give himself time to recover his energy (because Yuuri’s stamina would put angels to shame). Victor has kissed Yuuri countless times on or beside the ice in Hatsetsu, but also in Barcelona, Moscow and, most infamously, Beijing (really, Victor doesn’t understand the fuss about that. He’s more worried about the people out there who didn’t want to kiss Yuuri after watching that performance).

To his delight, Yuuri has returned the favour from time to time, when they were preparing for their exhibition skate.

So Victor never even thinks twice about showering Yuuri with kisses once they arrive in Russia, or of shooting off across the rink to demand his share whenever he manages to meet Yakov’s demanding standards again (coming back is hard, but so wonderful he doesn’t regret it for a moment, not least because it gives him the chance to earn more kisses).

Of course, Yakov yells at him, Yurio flashes past them screaming in outrage, Mila takes pictures and murmurs to herself, “Why didn’t I friend Phichit Chulanont years ago?”, and Georgi sends him long looks of tragic reproach.

Nothing really out of the ordinary there, then. Victor beams at them all, throws in an extra quad on his way back to Yakov just to annoy them, and returns to his practice with his heart welling over.

It’s a while before he notices that Yuuri has both disappeared to the far end of the rink and fallen on his last three jumps. Victor makes pleading eyes at Yakov, who huffs and waves him away, turning to yell at Yurio instead. Victor goes to Yuuri instead, pulling him to his feet, leaning in to kiss the end of his nose, and murmuring, “What’s wrong, darling?”

Yuuri flinches, pulls back, and almost falls over, his feet scrabbling against the ice. “I don’t think you should do that so much.”

Victor steadies him, hands on his hips. He does love the shape of Yuuri’s hips beneath his palms. “Do what?”

Yuuri’s slowly turning tomato-coloured (so adorable!), but he grits out, “Kiss me.”

Victor’s heart sinks. “But you like kissing me, Yuuri.”

Yuuri goes even redder. “But the others are watching.”

“They don’t care,” Victor assures him, leaning in to rub his cheek against Yuuri’s.

On the far side of the rink, Yurio screams, “Spare my eyes, you crazy old freak of nature!”

“He’s talking to Georgi,” Victor tries. It could even be true.

But Yuuri’s shaking his head. “I don’t want them to think badly of me. Or you.”

“But how am I supposed to reward you when you do something wonderful?” He knows he’s pouting, but he can’t help himself.

“You can still reward me. Just not on the ice.”

“But, Yuuri—”

And then Yuuri lifts his head, cheeks still scarlet, and smiles at him. Victor knows this smile. It’s the one Yuuri only ever uses on the ice and in the bedroom. It’s his Eros smile. He says, his voice husky, “We can still reward each other, Victor. Just not until we get home.”

Nnnrgh. Victor nods, wide-eyed and speechless.

“Good,” Yuuri says. “Now go and let Yakov coach you, before he and Yurio give each other heart attacks.”

Victor nods again. He’s still too dry-mouthed to speak.

It’s not until he’s halfway back across the rink that Victor begins to grin. Yuuri will change his mind once he realises he doesn’t need to be shy here. In the meantime, Victor will skate like a choirboy, an unfledged angel, a saintly priest with a halo shining around his hair. 

He spends the rest of the afternoon practising diligently and loftily ignoring the whiplash sounds Mila makes every time she skates past him.

And when they do finally get home, Yuuri keeps his promise.

  



	6. Victor/Yuuri, St Petersburg, post-series

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter in St Petersburg

The nights are the strangest thing. Yuuri knows they do end, even in the heart of winter, but sometimes days go by when they enter the rink before the first glimmer of light and leave after darkness falls. He lives his first few weeks in St Petersburg under moonlight and the electric lights of the rink, the warm riot of lamps and bulbs that fill Victor’s apartment, the icy glare of streetlights and the soar of illuminated buildings on the horizon, so grand and alien that he cannot begin to understand them.

The others reassure him, tell him stories about summer nights that sound just as strange and unlikely. Victor buys so many daylight bulbs Yuuri has to tell him to stop (they’re starting to give him headaches). Yurio says, very fiercely, “Otabek says that he had to sleep with something over his eyes when he came here for Yakov’s summer camp.” It’s not very helpful, but Yuuri thanks him anyway—half the things Yurio says these days start with ‘Otabeks says’ and Yuuri thinks he deserves at least one rinkmate who doesn’t find that hilarious (in retrospect, Yuuri is very grateful he didn’t actually meet Victor when he was fifteen). 

Georgi is the most helpful, in the end—not because he has any good advice, but because he comes from somewhere not far from the Ukraine border and can actually offer genuine sympathy and the promise that Yuuri will get used to it in the end. There’s something cathartic in moaning about the winter, Yuuri soon discovers, and bit by bit, he adjusts. The days weren’t the same length in Detroit as Hatsetsu, either, though the change was less extreme, and he coped then.

But it’s still strange to wake in the dark and see a time on the clock that means daylight to him.

And then there’s this morning, when they actually have a day off to sleep in, and Yuuri wakes up and the light’s still wrong.

For once Victor isn’t up before him, so Yuuri slides very quietly out of bed and pads to the window.

It’s snowing. Not the snow he knows from home—an occasional thrill in winter—or the frequent flurries he’s getting used to here. This is the kind of snow he thought only existed in movies—a dizzying mass cascading from the sky so thickly he can barely glimpse the building across the street.

Behind him, the bedside light clicks on. “Yuuri,” Victor complains, voice slow and sleepy. “Where are you?”

“It’s snowing,” Yuuri says. He can’t look away—the twists and flurries of it draw the eye.

“Yes?” Victor sounds confused.

A few moments later, warm arms slide around his waist and Victor nuzzles a kiss into the crook of his neck. “Oh, proper snow.”

Is the stuff they see every day not enough to count? 

“Come back to bed,” Victor urges. “We won’t be able to go out until it stops.”

Yuuri’s seen Detroit grind to a halt under less than this. Hatsetsu can only manage an inch or two. He can’t believe anywhere can cope with this much of it.

Victor slides a hand under his top, pulling Yuuri back against him. “Or we could do it right here,” he says into Yuuri’s ear, his breath hot. “No one can see in when it’s like this.”

Yuuri blushes, bites back his original gasp of protest, and thinks about it—the cold glass against his back, the whirl of the snow, Victor washed in the dim silver light of the storm. He says, “Only if you turn the lights off.”

Victor goes completely still behind him. Then he’s gone, his steps stumbling across the room. A moment later the light goes off and then Victor’s back, his hands eager on Yuuri’s hips, turning him round. Yuuri wraps his arms around Victor’s neck, rises into his eager kiss, his cheeks hot and his back cold. Victor kisses him like he wants to devour him, like he’s the sweetest, most forbidden treat in the world.

And Yuuri loves it.

Then Victor breaks the kiss, shoots him a gloriously dreamy smile, hooks his hands in Yuuri’s waistband, and slides to his knees.

Maybe, Yuuri thinks, winter’s not so bad after all.


	7. Young!Yakov/Young Lilia, set in 1967

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not just the current generation of Russian skaters who bring all the drama to the rink XD

Practice does not go well that day. Yakov’s tired and out of sorts, and not landing his jumps well. His coach yells. Yakov yells back.

“Glory!” Vasiliy bellows at him, pounding his fist against his palm. “Victory! Power! This is your theme, not this weak-willed sentimental fluttering across the ice!”

Behind him, Nikolai rolls his eyes and looks skyward. It’s all very well for Nikolai, Yakov thinks sulkily. He’s only seventeen, can bend in ways that make Yakov’s back ache in sympathy, and has already landed a triple flip in competition. And, more importantly, he’s not in love. 

“Again!” Vasiliy snaps at him. “This time without the hesitation.”

“I am not  hesitating! ” Yakov snaps. “I’m feeling!”

Vasiliy sneers. Nikolai smothers a laugh. Yakov uses the fact he hates them both to put some snap into his next jump.

That’s as good as it gets that morning. It’s not his fault, Yakov thinks, although he knows it is. Being in love with a prima ballerina—that he cannot help. Chasing that prima ballerina across the city from party to party, night after night, only to have her turn away again and again with that same mocking smile—that is his own choice.

He is sacrificing his skating to the name of love. Let Nikolai Plisetsky seize the glory from his failing hands. What does Yakov care for gold medals when Lilia Baranovskaya looks at them as if they are worth less than the dust beneath the pointes of her shoes!

Vasiliy banishes him to the far side of the rink to practise his steps sequences. Yakov goes, works on them until they are as sharp and bright as the ice below his feet, and then lets his heart guide him through the sequence.

“Still too much emotion!” Vasiliy yells.

Yakov puts his hands on his hips and bellows back, “What, am I not supposed to make the audience feel what I feel?”

And that just results in a yelling match that ends with him being sent off the ice until he can keep his temper. Hah. Vasiliy is an angry, heartless old man who has no patience with the young. If Yakov was ever to coach, he would not—

That train of thought is cut off by the realisation that someone is watching him from the side of the rink. No—not just someone. The only one who matters.

Yakov has been trying for the last six months to convince Lilia that he is smooth and charming and brilliant. Now he stands in front of her in his tatty old practice clothes, his hair on end where he has run his hands through it, soaked with sweat and still scowling from his fight with Vasiliy. Lilia, on the hand, is perfect. Her dark hair falls smoothly to either side of her face, sleek as a blade until it curls up against her shoulders. Her coat is yellow, the dress below it a swing of black and white stripes so short it’s as if she wants to torture him with the sight of those perfect legs. She is grace and beauty and cruelty in one elegant, flawless figure of a woman.

His mouth goes dry and his heart sinks. 

It doesn’t help that the only person who can truly appreciate the horror is a teenage prodigy currently messing up his own practice because he’s laughing so hard at Yakov’s plight.

Then, to his astonishment, Lilia Baranovskaya smiles at him and says, “So, you do have passion.”

“Yes,” Yakov croaks.

“Good. I thought you were nothing but noise and nonsense.”

Yakov bristles. Does she not appreciate how hard he has been trying to impress her?

Before he can say anything, she adds, “You are right, of course. Without feeling, it is not art.”

Forget triples. Yakov could land a quad with such wings in his heart.

She extends a hand to him over the edge of the rink. “I have changed my mind. You may take me to dinner tonight.”

Yakov skates forward, enchanted, and takes her hand. On pure instinct, he bows over it, brushing the lightest of kisses across her cold knuckles. “The honour would be all mine.”

And the ballerina blushes. 

  


  



	8. Victor/Yuuri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last one. Trigger warning for anxiety attack.

Sometimes, Victor has to be careful with his kisses. 

It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen, sometimes on days that have been bright and beautiful and easy until then. He gets better at seeing the signs over time, the way Yuuri gets quieter and quieter, the increasing stiffness of his shoulders, the excuses he makes to get away from people before it sweeps him away.

Seeing it coming isn’t the same as being able to stop it.

Sometimes, he just has to hold Yuuri’s hand and let him voice every fear, tell him how beautiful and beloved he is. That’s not always enough, though. Sometimes there’s nothing he can do but wait for the wave to sweep over them and then retreat again.

There are times when Yuuri can’t talk at all, times when he shakes against Victur’s embracing arm, curls away from it and into himself. When it’s really bad, it feels like he’s vanished entirely, that the real Yuuri—the beautiful, yearning, passionate man Victor loves—has gone away and left this quivering, voiceless shell in his place like a ghost. Victor knows now that isn’t true—Yuuri’s still there, even if he can’t reach out.

Victor doesn’t kiss him then. It would be wrong, profoundly, invasively wrong. Instead he sits beside Yuuri, resists the urge to trap him in his arms to keep him here, and talks. 

He doesn’t usually find talking hard, but sometimes his voice catches in his throat when he has to talk like this. He talks of everything and nothing, of the plans he has for future skates, of the gossip he’s heard around the rink, of the holidays he went on as a child, of the ones he wants to take Yuuri on, to beautiful exotic places where there is no ice, only sunlight and warmth.

It is best, he discovers, to keep compliments out of these conversations. They make Yuuri flinch in disbelief and look at him with eyes dark with distrust.

Yuuri is clumsy when he’s like this—it lies slashes of hurt across Victor’s heart to see someone who can dance on blades across the ice stumble and sway, as if he could be toppled by a touch. Usually, though, he will let Victor lead him to somewhere they can sit. It’s safe to press his knee against Yuuri’s, to put his hand next to Yuuri’s, so the sides of their fingers touch. Anything more than that can be too much.

It’s the hardest thing he’s ever learnt to do, holding back, meeting fear with the lightest of touches.

But eventually, every time, Yuuri will reach out and take his hand—will look up, smile wearily, wet his lips and whisper Victor’s name.

“I love you,” Victor will say then, when he finally knows he will be believed, and Yuuri’s smile will blossom like a flower.

Then, and only then, Victor can lean forward and lay the softest of kisses on Yuuri’s brow. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ee cummings


End file.
